Commissions: Black Canary

I’ve always liked Black Canary. My image of her was cemented by artist Dick Dillin, who drew the most glamorous women during his run on Justice League when I was a kid. His work often looked stiff and his figures blocky, but I later realized that had a lot to do with whatever inker he got that week. When inked by John Calnan, his drawing was at its best.

This is a private commission for a fan. I meant to get this out before I left for Australia, but dang. Well, it’s on its way now!

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I have the same feelings about Dillin’s art. Get that man the right inker and it was beautiful, badly matched inker and it could be just painful. I have never seen his untouched pencils, and have always been curious to see what his art looked like before the inkers.

Publishers would pair Dillin with heavy-handed inkers, like McLuaghlin, whose hard lines roughed up Dillin’s attractive characters. Dillin was never a great innovator. A lot of his appeal was in the straightfoward storytelling and good-looking people. The wrong inker could just kill that appeal.

John Calnan was a terrific inker. As I recall, whenever he inked Supergirl, the quality of the art went straight up. Realizing Calnan made Dillin look better; that’s the day I realized what a difference the inker makes. Also, Sal Buscema inked by different people. Saw him on an issue of Defenders, and I was crazy about it. The next issue, a different inker and I could not figure out what the heck happened.

For me the inker improvement/destruction realization happened back when George Perez was doing Wonder Woman shortly after Crisis. I found that I did not care for the art as much when a certain inker did the inks, but if Perez was inking himself or someone else who was far more complimentary I would just pour over the issues until they were ragged trying to absorb the talent through osmosis.

I actually remember feeling the same way when seeing your pencils on an issue of “Amethyst Princess of Gemworld.” There was just something so wonderful about your smooth lines and attractive (yet realistic) bodies that I reread that issue over and over.